Olympic Park takes significant step forward in transformation of east London and east Londoners

He saw snippets of the London 2012 Olympic Games from his jail cell, serving
12 months of a two year sentence.

Now just months later, Pee-Jay Spence, 21, says he is tired of making his mother cry and with the help of his probation officer has secured one of 30 apprentice construction positions on the £298 million total revamp of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

The London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) executive director of regeneration and community partnerships Paul Brickell says the redevelopment is all about "jobs, jobs, jobs", and Spence's employment after several years of crime and rioting is but one of nearly 1000 construction jobs on the Park in the next few years.

"It has turned my life around," says Waltham Forest based Spence, adding "at weekends I can't wait for Monday so I can go to work".

But frustrated Britons wanting to recapture those magical Olympic moments and inhale the golden atmosphere on the park are in for a long wait. Tuesday's official handover of the Olympic Park from the London Olympic organisers (Locog) to the LLDC - a body chaired by the Mayor of London Boris Johnson and owned by the Greater London Authority was the symbolic start for diggers, hard hatted workwomen and men to adhere to a tight timetable of works.

The handover of the park from the London Olympic organisers (Locog) to the London Legacy Development Corporation – a body chaired by Johnson, the Mayor of London, and owned by the Greater London Authority – was the symbolic start for diggers, hard-hatted workmen to adhere to a tight timetable of redevelopment works.

The Olympic Park will retain some iconic buildings like the Aquatics Centre, the velodrome, the main stadium and the Copper Box, but the surrounding areas are being significantly changed in a £298 million redevelopment: nine miles of roads rebuilt, 30 new bridges, some new parklands created in the northern areas all amidst five large housing developments to provide another 7,000 homes over the next 18 years.

Building on the first development, Chobham Manor with 850 homes, will start next year and will be built between the athletes village and the velodrome where the basketball stadium was located.

While the protective sheeting on the temporary stands of the Aquatics Centre were removed on Tuesday, keen swimmers will have to wait until Easter 2014 to dive into the crystal blue pools which are still filled with water - apparently on the say so of engineers who want the filtration system to remain active.

Work on the northern edges of the park will reopen a few months earlier – the velopark is tipped for a Christmas 2013 deadline and the Copper Box, which is undergoing a lower ground refit for concerts will be the first part of the park to welcome the public for its one-year anniversary on July 27, 2013. The first families will move into the 2,818 flats of the athletes' village, renamed East Village in September 2013, around the same time as the new local school, Chobham Academy, opens.

But the hundreds of thousands of people who have fond memories of the north-south spine walk between the big television screen on the river to the main stadium will find that particular part of the park turned into a four lane roadway, linking the Stratford shopping centre with Hackney.

Housing will also eventually envelop two sides of the main Olympic stadium – although the long term tenancy of that venue is still under discussion and construction for a new tenant (most of which is uncosted at the moment) may delay the stadium opening until mid to late 2016.

The spectacular Arcelor-Mittal Orbit will be shut for an indeterminate time because the costs of keeping it open with restricted access through the Park during this heavy construction phase is too expensive.

"Our aim is to getting the park open as quickly, but as safely as possible," the LLDC executive director of infrastructure Colin Naish said.

"The park will be home to some of th best sporting and entertainment venues in the world and will be a vibrant destination for people to live, work, visit and enjoy."